As a comic fan, there’s nothing I like more than getting my hands on a hardcover collection from my favorite comic book series. Two new collections are out this month from DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to share my thoughts on them.
Fables Deluxe Edition # 10
Bill Willingham’s Fables presents a world in which all of the famous fairy tale characters are real and they came to our world to escape an oppressive empire. Think Once Upon a Time… except Fables predates OUaT by nine years and it’s actually good.
Willingham and his longtime Fables artist Mark Buckingham are wrapping up the series this summer, but the recently released Fables Deluxe Edition # 10 offers a look back at The Great Fables Crossover that ran in Fables # 77 to 82, Jack of Fables # 33 to 35, and The Literals # 1 to 3.
As a Fables fan, I wonder how long Willingham had plans to pull off this story. Willingham teased Kevin Thorn in the early issues of Fables, but he brought Thorn to the forefront in Jack of Fables (alongside co-writer Matthew Sturges) as the creator of the Fables who wanted to destroy them and remake the world.
There was no third Fables book at the time, so Willingham and Sturges basically invented one for the purposes of this crossover. The Literals were essentially the embodiment of literary concepts, and a threat to all of reality in this adventure. The story functions as both an actual epic and a hilarious takedown of event comic crossovers. After reuniting with Bigby Wolf and Snow White, Jack abandons the story midway through to cause chaos in the original Fables book while Bigby and Snow reluctantly carry on the mission to stop Thorn.
The artwork by Buckingham and Tony Akins on the crossover is amazingly fun to look over, and it carries a lot of the comedic moments. My particular favorite was the confrontation between the transformed Bigby and the literary genres… especially Comedy. It just makes me laugh every time I read it.
Jack’s son, Jack Frost is also introduced in this storyline before he went on to take over Jack of Fables near the conclusion of that series. Jack’s earnestness in the face of his father’s dickishness was another great source of funny moments throughout the story. It also served as a reminder of how great Jack of Fables was. Why are there no Jack of Fables Deluxe Editions?! Are you listening, DC?!
Fables Deluxe Edition # 10 also reprints the Fables: Werewolves of the Heartland graphic novel by Willingham and artists Jim Fern and Craig Hamilton. The story has a good hook, as Bigby stumbles upon an entire city of werewolves hidden in America who owe their very existence to him. It even harkens back to one of the first Bigby solo stories from Fables.
But Werewolves of the Heartland falls short in the artwork. Aside from Bigby, most of the other male and female characters in the book seem to have only one default face each. It’s very distracting and it makes it difficult to distinguish between the various werewolves when they’re in their human forms.
I appreciate the added value of including Werewolves of the Heartland in this edition, but it’s just not as good as the story that preceded it. Still. Fables is a great series and I highly recommend this one for the crossover alone.
Astro City: Private Lives
Astro City is another one of my longtime favorites from writer Kurt Busiek, artist Brent Anderson and cover artist Alex Ross. The series is essentially an anthology that is set in a superhero world, but the focus is usually on the ordinary people who inhabit that world.
Astro City: Private Lives is the third collection of the relaunched Astro City title at Vertigo, with reprints of issues 11 through 16. Graham Nolan is a guest artist in this edition, but the bulk of the book was drawn by original series artist, Anderson.
The first story in the book is also the best, as the focus falls on the personal assistant to the Silver Adept, a young woman who is the overworked mystical defender of reality. But again, the story isn’t really about the Silver Adept, it’s about Raitha, the woman who has to go out of her way to keep the Silver Adept on task when there are several emergencies to deal with.
This story felt like it could have been the pilot episode for a TV series that I’d love to watch. Both Raitha and the Silver Adept were engaging characters and they rank among the best creations of the series. The second story revolves around a career criminal called the Gentleman Bandit, a man who keeps falling back into costumed villainy despite the personal cost to himself. That was fun, even though the outcome was very predictable.
The third story in the collection was nearly incomprehensible and I’m fairly certain that there was a printing error at the beginning of it that flipped the order of the pages. Basically, Busick’s script for this story jumps around from time to time and from character to character as an otherworldly entity known as the Dancing Master influences the citizens of Astro City. This is one of the few Astro City stories that I genuinely didn’t like. The entire thing felt muddled and unnecessary.
The fourth story is actually a two part adventure about Eleanor Jennersen, an elderly technology prodigy who makes it her life’s mission to rescue broken robots from superhero battles and she gives them a home in her roadside museum of robots. This is a great concept and Anderson’s art really shines when he shows off the designs of the various robots.
However, the characterization of Eleanor and her screwup nephew, Fred is surprisingly one-note. Even with two issues to flesh them out, Busiek’s script doesn’t come close to making either Eleanor or Fred register as believable people. Considering that’s usually one of Busiek’s strengths, I was surprised.
The final story in this collection is an interesting riff on the classic Superboy and Lex Luthor dynamic that goes to some new places. I’m not going to spoil the twist there, but I suspect that this was the controversial story of this collection.
Astro City stories are almost always standalone tales, but the closing pages of the book suggest that Busiek has some way to tie these five stories into a larger tale that he’s planning. I’ll certainly take more of Raitha and the Silver Adept, but I’m not sure the rest of these characters merit an expanded spotlight. However, I am willing to be convinced. It just depends on what Busiek and Anderson have in mind for the next volume.
